DEMO: Infusionsoft delivers email marketing 2.0 (video)

Infusionsoft is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Email marketing can be a great way for small businesses to target a specific group of potential customers. Looking to bring advanced email marketing features to the main stage, Infusionsoft today announced the launch of its Email Marketing 2.0 … Continue Reading

DEMO: TicketPlayground lets you buy second-hand tickets at the last minute — cheap

TicketPlayground is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

At first glance, the event-ticket reseller market seems saturated. You have companies like RazorGator, Viagogo, Seatwave and more all vying for the same customers. But TicketPlayground, a new secondary market for tickets launching at the DEMO conference, hopes to … Continue Reading

DEMO: Invested.in helps entrepreneurs turn social capital into real funding

Invested.in is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Invested.in hopes to make the hardest part of starting a business a little easier.

It’s a funding platform that lets people promote their ideas to friends and connections via social media in an attempt to collect funding for a … Continue Reading

DEMO: Genieo takes automatically generated homepages mobile

Genieo is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Genieo, a company whose service automatically creates personalized Web start pages, today announced that its service will be accessible via iPhone and Android devices as well as RSS readers.

The company targets those interested in skipping the time and … Continue Reading

DEMO: Sharetivity bookmarks and shares content across all your social networks

Sharetivity is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

With Facebook users sharing more than 5 billion pieces of content a week, it’s becoming clear that people are finding more photos, articles and videos than ever before through friends.

A Palo Alto-based startup called Sharetivity is trying to … Continue Reading

DEMO: Cloudcel connects Excel to cloud computing

Cloudscale is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

There’s a lot of excitement in the startup world about data, specifically around technologies like Hadoop that help companies process the large amounts of information they’re collecting from the web. For a non-techie, though, there’s a good chance “data … Continue Reading

DEMO: SocialOrbits helps you plan and book trips as a group

SocialOrbits is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

SocialOrbits, maker of a travel web app that let’s you devise plans and make reservations collaboratively with other people, is launching today at the DEMO conference in Palm Desert, Calif.

Part travel-booking site, part decision engine, Social Orbits lets … Continue Reading

Verizon announces BilltoMobile as a mobile payments provider

Verizon has agreed to use BilltoMobile, a service with roots in South Korea, as a mobile payments provider. The move that could help jumpstart the use of low-cost mobile payments in the United States.

The announcement was supposed to be announced at the CTIA mobile trade show in Las Vegas this week, but the companies moved up the announcement to today after VentureBeat inquired about it. The relationship between Verizon and BilltoMobile is a big … Continue Reading

DEMO: Google still advocating for mobile web sites over apps

Google has been pushing for mobile web sites — rather than downloadable mobile applications — for a while now. For example, Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra provocatively (if hyperbolically) declared at our MobileBeat conference July that Google isn’t “rich enough” to build apps for every smartphone. Google Ventures partner Wesley Chan stuck to this company line when he took the stage at the DEMO Spring 2010 conference today in Palm Desert, Calif.

Chan sat … Continue Reading

Qualcomm leads $10M round for Vue personal video network gear

Avaak, maker of the Vue personal video network, a remote monitoring system built from small, wireless, battery-powered cameras — that means you can stick them anywhere — announced a $10 million second round of funding today led by Qualcomm, who join existing investors Trinity Ventures, InterWest Partners and Leapfrog Ventures.

Qualcomm’s goal with the investment: Get Vue systems into retail distribution channels. “Avaak has taken video monitoring to a new level of simplicity, allowing consumers … Continue Reading

Amazon unveils iPad and tablet Kindle ebook reader application

Amazon has finally given us a glimpse at its Kindle application for tablets, which first makes its appearance on Apple’s iPad. The news follows the release of a Kindle application for Macs last week.

Feature-wise, there isn’t much that we didn’t expect. The application will let you continue reading from where you’ve left off on the Kindle, or any of the other Kindle applications. You’ll also be able to purchase books from the Kindle Store … Continue Reading

Top iPhone app prices drop steeply worldwide

The latest monthly report from Dutch app analytics firm Distimo says that on average, prices of the most popular iPhone applications worldwide have decreased by 15 percent on average since December 1.

To be clear, the average price of all apps hasn’t changed. But the average price of apps in Apple’s Top 100 lists has dropped by one-sixth.

Distimo founder Vincent Hoogsteder explained in an email to me that turn-by-turn navigation applications from Tom Tom, … Continue Reading

Double Fusion raises a round and changes CEO for in-game ad business

Double Fusion, an in-game advertising company, has replaced its chief executive and raised a round of funding, VentureBeat has learned.

Jonathan Epstein has stepped down as CEO and Alex Sood has been promoted to the top job. Sood previously managed the company’s Asian subsidiary. Meanwhile, the San Francisco company has raised a new round of funding from Jerusalem Venture Partners. The company did not disclose the amount of the funding.

The company said the new … Continue Reading

DEMO: Bloson turns everything you do online into a good deed (video)

Bloson is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Bloson, a social networking site that connects companies, consumers and non-profit organizations, to help the world, is emerging from beta testing today.

The idea behind Bloson is to allow regular internet users to raise money for causes without having … Continue Reading

DEMO: AppWhirl lets anybody create their own iPhone app

AppWhirl is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Everybody should have their own app. That’s the basic idea behind AppWhirl, which allows anyone to create an app for the iPhone to broadcast a stream of news and other information in real time.

Mountain View, Calif.-based AppWhirl is … Continue Reading

DEMO: DigitalScirocco connects buyers and sellers of online content

DigitalScirocco is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Having a steady stream of fresh and relavent content can be key to a successful website. With that in mind, DigitalScirocco today announced the launch of a virtual marketplace to help connect sellers and buyers of content connect.

DigitalScirocco … Continue Reading

DEMO: Group collaboration gets a bit of voting input with Democrasoft

Democrasoft is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Democrasoft, a Santa Rosa-based collaboration startup, aims to bring a bit of voter input into online community building and project management. It’s a service that lets groups, both large and small, organize conversations and pick ideas to promote. The … Continue Reading

DEMO: Visiarc's Mobile Documents aim to redefine mobile e-mail attachments

Visiarc is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

Mobile developer Visiarc says current mobile e-mail solutions stink at giving users access to large attachments. Its Mobile Documents application aims to solve that problem by streaming large attachments to your phone, instead of waiting for them to download.… Continue Reading

DEMO: ThickButtons makes it easier to type on touchscreens

ThickButtons is one of 65 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2010 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.

As more phones launch with virtual rather than physical keyboards, users need to re-learn how to type — and it’s not always the most intuitive experience. Some phones, like Motorola’s Droid, use vibrations to indicate clicks, but now a … Continue Reading